Category Archives: TV

Comcast recently responded to the growth of over the top (OTT) streaming video services by launching its own version. While not an outright OTT, the idea behind Comcast’s Stream is to provide a narrow collection of channels that will appeal to a younger demographic. Seeing as the system developed out of an earlier program designed specifically for college students, it is not surprising that Comcast hopes those same viewers will purchase Stream as they begin living on their own. Ultimately, according to a spokesman for the company, Comcast believes that once these consumers achieve higher income levels, they will upgrade to a full cable package.

Although Stream has seen some growth since its release earlier this summer, industry analysts question whether or not the service launched too early. In particular, they have pointed out that it does not provide the same flexibility as a real OTT, since it requires the user to already be a Comcast internet customer, and it can only broadcast live shows on the home wireless network of the consumer. In order to access live television programs remotely, say on a tablet while traveling, the broadcast network needs to have its own mobile app through which the Stream subscriber can authenticate. The ability to watch live shows via Stream while away from the home network should be available by early 2016, around the same time that the service will have expanded to a national audience. Currently, only Comcast internet customers in Chicago and Boston have the option to purchase the service.

Looking toward the future, Comcast is working to make its larger channel packages even more appealing. Part of the positive forecast is reflected in the announcement of a new deal with Discovery Communications, the group responsible for producing the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and TLC, that will extend into the 2020s. Additionally, Comcast is in contract discussions with companies, including Business Insider and Vice Media, to produce original programming for the cable company. In the eyes of the media conglomerate, original content can’t appear soon enough, as Comcast lost almost 70,000 cable television subscribers during the first six months of 2015.

In another realization of the changing nature of their business plan, Comcast has announced that it is beginning the testing phase of a new modem model known as the DOCSIS 3.1 The testing of this modem parallels the company’s announcement that it will be offering a fiber internet service with speeds of 2 Gbps. The potential expansion of fiber with the DOCSIS 3.1 is extensive, as it could allow speeds to eventually reach 10 Gbps, although that remains a distant reality at this point in time.

In an era when cable television subscriptions are declining, many of the largest providers are working together to promote the TV Everywhere concept. Comcast, Mediacom, HBO, and others are making a concerted effort to educate their subscribers about the existence of TV Everywhere. Research studies have shown that over 25% of cable television subscribers are unaware that they have access to the various platforms which allow them to watch both network- and cable-produced shows on their computers and mobile devices. The companies developed the system in an effort to stem the tide of cord-cutting customers who are canceling their cable video services and flocking to streaming video providers, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime.

A number of issues have haunted TV Everywhere since its development. The most serious issues involve live television broadcasts. As it stands, only a limited number of cable channels have agreed on retransmission terms that allow for their content to be carried on mobile devices at the same time that it airs on TV. The major broadcast networks, comprising CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox, have yet to agree on terms for TV Everywhere, in large part due to issues surrounding regional affiliates and geographic overlap. Although they are considered secondary issues compared to transmission rights, problems with user authentication and passwords remain a stumbling block for TV Everywhere, according to an industry report published in late 2014. Cable companies are working to resolve these concerns and streamline the overall experience for customers accessing TV Everywhere on their phone, computer, or tablet.

Despite the adversity facing cable companies, TiVo has seen increased revenue and subscriber totals as a result of its Roamio OTA DVR. This system is designed to locate and record the freely-provided television shows disseminated by TV stations. For around a one-time cost of $50 and a monthly subscription of $15, users are able to watch live television on their TV and stream it to devices on the same wireless network. Furthermore, TiVo’s DVR system boasts integrated streaming services, including Netflix and Hulu Plus, so that consumers have access to their subscription services on the same platform that they watch broadcast television, a prime example of the type of streamlined integration TV Everywhere has yet to achieve.

TiVo has reached out to the smaller cable companies that offer both broadband internet and cable TV packages in an effort to create new working relationships. In particular, TiVo is targeting these companies so that they can generate revenue by leasing the Roamio DVRs to broadband-only customers. While this sort of arrangement is unlikely to be as lucrative as individuals subscribing to a full cable package, it could provide some economic relief for cable companies that are hurting from cord-cutter abandonment. So far agreements to establish this leasing program have been reached with Frontier and WideOpenWest (WOW), while ongoing talks continue with other providers across America.

In 2014 AT&T and DirecTV announced a merger worth almost $50 billion dollars. While this proposed deal would provide a new way for AT&T to expand its footprint, the process had been stuck in the approval phase for months, although after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recommended last week that the deal move ahead, industry experts now believe that it will be approved formally within ten days. It appears that the main sticking point had been ensuring that AT&T adheres to the new FCC rules pertaining to broadband speeds. While this impasse persisted, AT&T was forced to file for two extensions to close the deal, the most recent only a few weeks ago.

When the deal does receive final approval, it will make AT&T the largest TV provider in the nation and will give DirecTV customers access to broadband services. Two recent filings to the FCC detail parts of AT&T’s plan to address the Department of Justice’s concerns that the merger may create a TV and broadband monopoly. The first filling stipulates that lower and middle income families will have access to DSL services, if available, at discounted prices. Upon further review of the filling, however, there are major limitations on this provision. In particular, the program will continue for only four years and for the more remote locations, will only provide speeds of 1.5 Mbps, which is too slow to support streaming services like Hulu Plus or Netflix. This low speed option has caused experts to speculate this is a different tactic in video slowdown and wonder if AT&T will be in full compliance with the Net Neutrality ruling if they do not improve this aspect of their proposal. Prices for this service would range from $5 to $10 per month, while a higher tier with speeds up to 5 Mbps would cost $10 to $20 per month.

The second filing to the FCC also addresses coverage issues, but deals with fiber internet customers. As part of its proposed merger, AT&T has promised that it will extend its 1 Gbps fiber footprint to almost 12 million businesses and homes within the next four years. This announcement comes on the heels of one made in April 2015 that AT&T was looking at nearly 100 cities where they might roll out fiber service, including Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta. As mentioned in the new FCC filing, AT&T has now added a new focus on the state of Florida, in particular the cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The company will draw on its recent successful expansion in the state of Texas, particularly around Dallas and Austin, to implement an efficiency plan to bring its GigaPower fiber service to the Sunshine State by the middle of 2016. Whether or not these efforts are enough to alleviate any lingering concerns still held by the Department of Justice should become clear by the middle of August 2015.

Analysts remain conflicted over the potential growth of Verizon FiOS as 2015 continues. New subscriber projections suggest there will only be around 90,000 additions during the second quarter, which are 25,000 fewer than had been anticipated. To put these totals in perspective, for the same period of time in 2014, FiOS subscribers increased by over 135,000. However, despite these underperforming totals, the expansion of Verizon FiOS, especially in parts of New York, Texas, and New Jersey, is expected to increase substantially over the next eighteenth months.

Even if FiOS numbers remain down, one of the reasons that observers are optimistic about Verizon’s financial growth over the long haul is that it plans to release its own video streaming service by September 2015. Over the past few months, Verizon has reached agreements with a number of content providers and is continuing talks with even more. While the initial target is to provide around 25 channels to subscribers, including content from Comedy Central, MTV, Food Network, HGTV, and the Travel Channel, the yet-unnamed service will also include video shorts produced by AwesomenessTV, a subsidiary of DreamWorks. While these offerings will whet the appetite of many consumers, Verizon has made clear that it is especially interested in a younger demographic. As a result of this focus, it has established agreements with ESPN, the ACC Network, CBS Sports, and 120 Sports. Content from these networks will include some NFL, college basketball, and college football games, but broadcast restrictions will apply.

Although complete details of the Over the Top (OTT) streaming service have not yet been announced, it is clear that Verizon plans to have an ad-based model, similar to what Hulu Plus does, compared to the pure subscription model used by Netflix. While Hulu Plus has not enjoyed the same subscriber growth as Netflix, Verizon hopes to change this by benefiting from its recent purchase of AOL. Since its days of providing users dial-up internet access, AOL has transformed itself into a leader in online advertising. Survey results produced by the advertising industry have shown that AOL is successful in reaching a target audience more than 55% of the time, a figure that is the envy of all advertisers besides Google. Another aspect tied to the success of the ads on the new Verizon service is that the company hopes users will enjoy the content not only at home, but also on their mobile devices. This means streaming over Verizon’s existing wireless network while consuming a lot of data. However, realizing that the threat of data overage fees may turn off some consumers, Verizon has established an agreement in which the advertisers will help subsidize part of the cost for data used while viewing video content.

A little over two months ago a proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC) was called off. Almost no time passed before Charter Communications entered into an agreement to purchase TWC for roughly $57 billion. As the calendar turns to July, there remains a certain level of uncertainty surrounding the details of this proposed purchase, as well as how the FCC will respond to the bid.

Early after its announcement in 2014, the bid by Comcast to purchase TWC was considered a long shot. Claims from within the broadband community, consumer advocate groups, and the public all made it clear that they were concerned with the creation of what would have been the largest TV operator in the United States. Even the Chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, expressed his opposition to the merger. Wheeler’s main point of contention, however, was that if the purchase were allowed to proceed, it would create an unfair competitive advantage for Comcast in the broadband market. In particular, the company would have enjoyed a controlling share of almost 60% among broadband providers. Ultimately it was this near monopoly, coupled with the lack of any penalty fee for ending the agreement, which caused Comcast to back out of the deal.

Drawing lessons from the failed deal between Comcast and TWC, Charter has begun to promote how its proposed purchase of TWC will not alter the television or broadband playing field on the national stage. The CEO of Charter, Tom Rutledge, has stressed that even if his company is successful in acquiring TWC and Bright House, the newly expanded company will still be only the second largest provider of cable and high speed internet services behind Comcast. At most, Charter would supply about 20% of all TV customers and 29% of all broadband customers. Another issue that Charter does not need to address is that unlike Comcast, which has a financial interest in Hulu, there is no concern that Charter may regulate speeds for video streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Charter is also drawing on the FCC ruling which made broadband a Title II utility as a reason for why its proposed merger should be approved. Rutledge made clear that the footprint of the expanded company would not overlap geographically and that there would remain competition for broadband services offering 25 Mbps in all of its coverage areas. Additionally, he stated that since the majority of the company’s investment is in broadband, not television, it would encourage the expansion of Over the Top (OTT) streaming video services and not impose any sort of data cap on customers. Indeed, subscribers with the new Charter, if the merger is approved, could see significant savings on their broadband subscriptions as their speeds are tripled while their monthly bill is lowered.

While the merger works its way through regulatory checks, industry analysts appear confident that the deal will occur. The latest suggestions are that there is a 75% chance that the deal is approved. The FCC has announced that they hope to have this process decided, in favor or opposition of the merger, by the end of 2015.

Continuing the trend of breaking apart cable packages, the NBA announced after the 2015 NBA Finals that beginning next season they will be making changes to their League Pass. In existence since 1994, the League Pass for the 2014-2015 season cost $200 and provided subscribers access to over 1,000 games that were not already available on a local sports network in the region. This plan was offered through TV providers and directly from the NBA via their own online video platform designed for iOS, Android, and desktop computers.

The changes in the NBA League Pass bundling will allow subscribers to purchase season-long access for a single team or purchase access to individual games. Although the official pricing tiers will not be released until July 2015, industry experts expect that following a single team for the season will range in cost from $50 to $100, while individual game prices will be in the $2 to $5 range. The latest speculation is that the prices for these tiers will be consistent across markets and teams, regardless of their size or popularity. However, the one restriction will be that this unbundled package will only be offered through the NBA’s video platform, rather than through the television providers. In light of this announcement, there have been discussions to resolve some areas of concern between the NBA and their broadcast partners, including ESPN, Turner Networks, and regional sports networks, such as the Los Angeles Lakers’ SportsNet.

While analysts praise the NBA for making this decision, and stress the new growth this move is bound to bring to Commissioner Adam Silver’s league, the NBA is bucking the trend of the other professional sports leagues in how they offer their products. MLB and the NHL also have sports packages, while the most famous, and controversial one, is the NFL’s Sunday Ticket Package, which has also been in existence since 1994. Offered exclusively through DirecTV, a lawsuit was filed recently claiming that the NFL’s package structure and use of blackouts are in violation of federal law and need to be overturned. While this lawsuit is just beginning, a recent development in a case involving NHL blackouts and bundled packages may ultimately impact the case against the NFL. The settlement in the NHL case means that for the next five years fans will be able to purchase a package online, known as Game Center Live, that allows them to follow a single team at prices more than 20% below the current cost of bundled packages. Legal experts expect the lawsuit against MLB to be resolved in the same way. All of this suggests that while television providers may be unhappy with the NBA’s voluntary decision to provide a non-bundled package, it may spare the NBA costly legal battles in the future.

One of the biggest hassles that people experience when they move is finding new cable and internet providers. While there are a bevy of cable packages to choose from, the options for broadband providers are not always as plentiful. With the recent FCC decision to reclassify broadband as a Title II utility, coupled with its change in what constitutes broadband, services with speeds of 25 Mbps or higher, the process of selecting a provider by a new homeowner has gotten even harder. The issue at hand is that for the vast majority of American households, there is only one, if any, Internet Service Provider (ISP) that can supply true broadband. The latest statistics are that 19.7% of American households do not have access to an ISP offering the 25 Mbps speed, while 54.3% have access to only one such ISP.

While the broadband provider issue appears to be changing with the development and expansion of fiber networks throughout the country, Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV, is stressing that consumers may see an increased strain on their finances as they purchase internet access. In particular, Lynch believes that those consumers who are broadband-only subscribers, the type who thrive in the expanding Over the Top (OTT) ecosystem of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus, will feel the pinch as cable companies attempt to offset their loss of TV subscribers by raising the price on single-use consumers. While OTT-only dwellings remain a small part overall, the percentage is growing and has now reached 10.5 million households, up over 15% from 2012. This expansion is occurring at the same time that pay TV subscriptions have declined over 0.5% since the start of 2015, the largest decline ever recorded.

Although Lynch’s claims must be taken with a grain of salt, considering that Sling TV is a subsidiary of Dish Network and a competitor to the cable companies, there is no denying that the new OTT offering is seeing early growth. Since its February 2015 launch, the $20 per month service has expanded to over 250,000 customers. While this is a fine showing, it is not a surprise to industry analysts who predicted a fast start but see Sling TV’s subscription numbers slowing down quickly. With its focus on offering smaller channel bundles and the option to add other thematic bundles for an additional cost per month, Sling is trying to develop its own niche, no doubt assisted by the existing relationships that Dish Network enjoys with broadcasters. However, Sling’s sustained growth, especially from those consumers interested in a variety of sports offerings, of which the OTT service has limited access, remains the question.

Ultimately, all of the talk about falling pay TV customer totals, increasing costs for broadband-only subscribers, and the increase of OTT offerings means that consumers need to be aware of what services are available in their area before they sign a lease or close on a home.

The way that consumers watch television and movies is changing. For the last few years attention has focused on the members of the ‘cord cutting generation’ who do not want to pay for cable television service. To fill in this void there have been two major developments: Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services, like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD) services, like Hulu. Although these are the services most people are familiar with, there are other providers in the ever-growing Over The Top (OTT) service industry. Recent statistics related to this burgeoning industry suggest that cable companies need to act quickly and change the way they present their future content if they want to remain viable in the face of OTT competition.

Cable providers have looked cautiously at the latest quarterly earnings release for the industry which the Leichtman Research firm says provides no concrete evidence that consumers are preparing to switch over completely to OTT and leave behind pay TV. However, other experts claim that these findings undervalue the record low customer growth of only 10,000 across all the major cable companies. Parks Associates, another research firm, believes it has evidence that cord cutting has reached a new level. The latest estimates are that around 7 percent of American households, approximately 8.5 million homes, have high speed internet and OTT services, yet they are not subscribed to a pay TV service. With this number set to increase there is little wonder that upwards of 84% of all internet usage in the United States by 2019 will involve video streaming. Further supporting the belief that cord cutting is a growing trend, Limelight found in a recent survey that over 50% of the 1220 people they interviewed were willing to go completely OTT and cancel their cable subscriptions.

It comes as no surprise in light of all of these recent polls and studies that cable providers are attempting to find new ways to engage with this cord cutting generation. Although TV Everywhere systems have been developing for the last half decade, new providers are throwing their hats into the ring, including Sky, Rogers Communication, and Dish Network. The hope of these companies is that they will be able to tap into the OTT market while recent changes in local regulatory practices will allow them to lure some consumers back to traditional cable packages. With less overview necessitating uniform programming packages in the same geographic region, it is possible that cable providers will create even smaller, more focused packages to convince people to not cut the cord. In the meantime, it is a prime market for consumers to shop around and determine what channels and programs are most important to them, whether or not they need a cable subscription, and if they can go fully OTT.

While the much-discussed March 2015 decision by the FCC upheld the idea of Net Neutrality, there is a change taking place at the local level that cable providers are hailing as a victory for streamlining the distribution of content to their customers. For the last twenty-two years, local, city, and state committees have possessed oversight of the basic programming packages provided by the cable companies. Now, after a unanimous 5-0 ruling by the FCC to remove this restriction, the providers will be able to determine all the details of their programming packages without having to receive the approval of local authorities.

Up until now, the oversight provided by the local committees as part of the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act not only dictated which channels could not be excluded from the basic programming packages, but also how much those packages could cost. The new FCC ruling determined that the regulation was no longer necessary because of changes in the market that have created an elevated level of competition for the cable providers, in particular through the expanding footprint of services provided by companies like DirecTV and Dish. Another factor in the FCC’s decision was that since 2013, 220 of 224 requests for exemption from local rate-setting restrictions were approved. With such a high success rate for receiving exemptions, the FCC believes that it is simply removing an unnecessary level of red tape.

Cable providers state that with the removal of uniform package requirements, they will be able to present consumers with a variety of service and channel packages, ultimately providing more choices for service packages that don’t include the higher cost premium channels. At the same time the cable providers have cheered the latest FCC decision, broadcasters have been critical of the claims that satellite companies provide reliable enough competition to all parts of the United States to justify this victory for the cable providers. As a result of this rule change, and contrary to the cable companies’ claims, there is a fear among broadcasters that basic TV station signals will now be placed in costly service tiers, ultimately lowering the viewership of local programming.

The concern over the FCC ruling is not confined to just local regions, but also the halls of power in Washington D.C. A representative for the National Association of Broadcasters remains perplexed why the one defense available to safeguard consumers from skyrocketing prices has been removed so easily. Furthermore, members of Congress have questioned the FCC’s ruling, stating that this decision will result in increased prices and fewer channel choices for residents in rural and remote areas.